Comfort

by Joyce Moyer Hostetter

  “I just can’t imagine your mother picking green beans,” I said.

  Gavin laughed. “Me either! She mostly grows orchids.”

  “Oh.” Talk about being a country bumpkin! All of a sudden I felt like I didn’t belong anywhere. Not back home where people didn’t understand how it felt to have polio. And not in Warm Springs trying to mix with high society.

  Since they came from Florida, Gavin’s parents planned to stay in a guest cottage on the grounds. After supper they played games with us in Georgia Hall. Then his mother went to the baby grand piano and played hit songs like “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” and “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree (With Anyone Else but Me).”

  Someone handed out song sheets so we could sing along. Some people kept right on playing games, but you could see them nodding their heads to the music. Suzanne and I leaned on the piano and sang.

  I looked around at all the smiling faces. I saw people in wheelchairs who’d been flat on their backs when I first came to Warm Springs. And others who’d graduated from wheelchairs to crutches. Just like me, they was learning to think of themselves as something besides cripples.

  Roosevelt had really started something when he came to Georgia. I felt proud to be part of it. Just the thought of it made me sing louder. But then, out of nowhere, I got this feeling like I shouldn’t be enjoying myself when my family was going through Lord-knows-what back home. So right there, while I was singing “Happy Days Are Here Again,” a sadness washed over me.

  I thought about the singing at the little colored church near my home, and suddenly I wanted to hear those songs. So I asked Gavin’s mother if she could play “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.”

  She started right in, and I sang along. At the end she scooted over a little and patted the piano bench. “Sit here, Ann Fay,” she said. “I want to hear you sing some more.” Then she played “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.”

  Well, we hadn’t sung more than a few lines when I heard this great big voice singing behind me. But it felt like it was all around me. I tell you, it was so beautiful it put the cold chills on my arms. I just wanted to stop singing and listen. I turned and saw that it was Mr. Botts! I did stop then and just stared. But he motioned for me to keep singing. I tried to match my voice to his, but I know I sounded puny beside him.

  When we got done, everyone clapped and Mr. Botts said, “Ann Fay, they like it. Sing some more.”

  “Mr. Botts,” I said, “it’s you they’re clapping for. Where did you learn to sing like that?”

  A sadness crossed over his face then. “Polio interrupted a lot of things,” he said. He didn’t explain any more. He just took his fancy metal wheelchair with his crutches strapped to the back and rolled out the door of Georgia Hall.

  I guessed he didn’t want to talk about what polio had interrupted. But he had sure made me curious.

  Sam wheeled his chair into the spot that Mr. Botts had left empty. “I guess you know,” he said, “that before he got polio, Mr. Botts was training with William Hinshaw. And Mr. Hinshaw sang for the Metropolitan Opera in New York.”

  Of course, I didn’t know any of that. I’d never even heard of William Hinshaw. But I just said, “Now, ain’t that something!”

  “Ain’t?” said Sam. “Ann Fay, you’ve got to start using the King’s English. Anybody who can sing the way you do shouldn’t go around talking as if you’re not educated.”

  It wasn’t the first time Sam had fussed at me about the way I talked. He was right, of course! If I stopped and thought about it, I knew ain’t wasn’t a real word. And I knew when to use words like saw and seen and come and came. It was just easy to slip into talking the way people back home done—I mean, did.

  But I was learning to talk more like people at Warm Springs too. For instance, nobody at Warm Springs called themselves crippled. We were polios. To hear people talk, you would think it was something to be proud of. After all, hadn’t the president of the United States been one?

  Somewhere along the way I had stopped thinking of polio as a weakness and started realizing it could make me strong.

  Of course, Daddy had told me that very same thing on the first day of school when I didn’t want to go. He was talking about Roosevelt. “Maybe polio made him stronger than he already was,” he said.

  I knew I didn’t come from high society. And my daddy never went past ninth grade. But sometimes I thought he was the smartest man in the world.

  23

  Hubert

  March 1946

  There was a brace shop at Warm Springs. Mr. Maddox, the brace maker, made all sorts of things there. Contraptions, as my daddy would say—devices to help people pick things up, hold a spoon, or use a typewriter. And of course they made braces for our legs and arms and also corsets and shoe buildups for people who needed them. I couldn’t even begin to list all the things they’d make for you.

  I had already been there for my Canadian crutches and to get the clicking sound in my braces fixed. And now I was supposed to get fitted with Canadian canes. I was excited because that meant I was really improving.

  Since the brace shop was down below the medical building, I was tired when I got there. So I didn’t mind waiting for the man in a wheelchair just ahead of me. It was Hubert, the Navy man who scared me with that palmetto bug the day I came to Warm Springs. Mrs. Trotter was with him.

  When I come in the door he was telling Mr. Maddox about a stunt he’d pulled the night before. Evidently his practical jokes always had something to do with palmetto bugs. “Compared to the critters we saw in the South Pacific, these bugs are tiny,” he said. “Don’t tell anyone, but I keep a few as pets.”

  The way he said “these bugs” made me think he had one with him. I thought maybe I should turn around and leave.

  But then he said how, just that morning, he’d sneaked one into an older girl’s handbag. “She reached in for lipstick and guess what she got?” Hubert mimicked the girl’s scream. “When that bug skittered across her hand, she threw her pocketbook so hard she nearly broke a lamp in Georgia Hall.”

  Hubert was having such a good time with that story I thought he was going to bust open laughing. And Mr. Maddox too. But Mrs. Trotter had a look of pure horror on her face.

  There was a wall just inside the door with a display of braces, special shoes, and other gadgets on it. When Hubert told that story, I jerked back a little and bumped the display. I knocked a heavy metal brace off its hook. It went clattering to the floor.

  And I tell you what’s the truth—a body would’ve thought we went straight from a comedy play to a war zone!

  Every one of us about jumped out of our britches when it fell. But Hubert? It must’ve scared him half to death. “Enemy fire!” he hollered. “They’re blowing us to smithereens!” He yelled a bunch of other things too, but I didn’t understand most of it. He ducked his head, trying to throw himself on the ground.

  Only he couldn’t. He was paralyzed from polio.

  Mr. Maddox just stared at him and then at me. Mrs. Trotter reached out and put her hand on Hubert’s shoulder. “It’s okay. There’s no enemy fire,” she said. “You’re safe here. You’re in Warm Springs, Georgia. You’re safe. You’re in Georgia now. In Georgia.”

  Hubert kept on hollering. Mrs. Trotter rubbed his shoulders and said it again, real gentle. “You’re in Warm Springs. Everything’s going to be all right.” She pulled his head up against her and cradled it there. Hubert was shaking like it was a cold day in January. His teeth were chattering, too.

  He did quiet down, though. His hollering turned to moaning and then to crying. Mrs. Trotter held him while he bawled like a baby boy.

  I don’t know what happened after that because Mr. Maddox suggested I come another time instead. And when he did, I remembered back to second grade when I was talking to Peggy Sue during arithmetic class. The teacher was so annoyed she sent me out to stand in the hall. All these years later I could still feel the mortification of it.

  I didn’
t have what it took to get back up to Kress Hall. I just wanted to crawl under the bushes next to the nearest building. So I let myself to the ground and leaned against the end wall.

  The earth felt cool and solid beneath me. My tummy felt wobbly. Why had I knocked that stupid brace to the floor?

  I could still hear Hubert sobbing through the open doorway of the brace shop. And I heard Mrs. Trotter’s low voice. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but I could guess. “You’re in Warm Springs,” she was telling him. “You’re safe here.”

  But I knew Hubert didn’t feel safe. And now, all of a sudden, I didn’t either.

  Did the war have to come all the way to Warm Springs? Why couldn’t there be one peaceful place in the world?

  While I was sitting there with my legs sticking out beyond the bushes where just anyone could see, I heard Suzanne’s voice.

  “Ann Fay? Is that you?” It took her a minute to get there and I tried to wipe the tears away before she did. But she seen right off that I was crying. “What?” she asked. “What’s wrong? Did someone hurt you?” Suzanne let herself down to the ground in front of me. Her hair was damp so I knew she’d just come from the pool. Her large eyes looked real worried. “What happened?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing.”

  I thought about Imogene then and what a comfort she was to me in the polio hospital. And how she made me talk when I didn’t want to. And how Suzanne had befriended me too. So I started talking.

  “I mean, I don’t know. I scared that Navy man—Hubert—in the brace shop. I knocked something down and made a bunch of noise, and next thing I knew, it was like he was back in the war. And now he’s in there crying like a baby and it’s all my fault!” I didn’t want to cry in front of Suzanne. But I did. I couldn’t stop.

  “Maybe he’s just having a bad day,” she said. “It could’ve been anybody that upset him.” She patted my arm.

  “But it’s not just Hubert,” I said. “It’s my daddy too. You never know when he’s going to go off the deep end.” My nose was dripping and I didn’t have a handkerchief. I wiped at the snot with the back of my hand.

  Suzanne pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket. It was used, but I didn’t care.

  “When is that stupid war going to go away? Why can’t it leave me in peace?”

  I leaned my head against the medical building. It felt solid and warm. I looked up at the Georgia sky. It was loaded with puffy clouds stacked one on top of the other, like Momma’s clean sheets piled in the laundry basket.

  All of a sudden I wanted in the worst way to be at home, breathing in the smell of clothes coming off the line. Eating Momma’s fluffy biscuits. Laughing with her and Daddy over something the twins was doing. If I could just be there, surely we would be laughing.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  We got ourselves off the ground and started toward Kress Hall. “My mother will be coming for me any minute,” said Suzanne. “Are you going to be all right?

  I gave her back the handkerchief. “I’ll just go to my room and write to my family.”

  That’s what I did, too.

  Dear Momma and Daddy,

  Is everything okay at home? I really need to know. Sometimes things seem almost perfect around here and then something happens that lets you know everyone else has problems too.

  I’ll soon be fitted with Canadian canes. They have a band that fits around the forearm but the bottom is like crutches. They’re lightweight because they’re made of aluminum like the Canadian crutches I’ve been using.

  So, you see, I’m making progress. Soon I will have the stairs mastered and then I’ll be coming home. Maybe I should surprise you and just show up one day! Wouldn’t that be fun? But of course, the doctor will be sending you a letter first, filling you in on my progress.

  Daddy, I bet you’ve planted the peas by now. I know how you like to get an early start. I wish I was there to help.

  All my love,

  Ann Fay

  I put the letter in an envelope and stuck a stamp on it. I felt closer to my family already. Even though nothing had changed and I sure didn’t come out and tell them what happened with Hubert, somehow just writing to them put my mind more at ease.

  24

  Mr. Botts

  March 1946

  After that horrible day in the brace shop, I tried not to see Hubert.

  I knew exactly where he sat in the dining room, but I never looked his way. And if I saw him coming toward me on a sidewalk, I’d cut across the grass. He probably never knew I was the one who made him go berserk. So it wasn’t like he would be embarrassed if he saw me.

  But I was trying to protect myself. Just catching a glimpse of him would put a certain dread over me. I’d lose track of whatever game or conversation I was in the middle of.

  Mrs. Trotter seemed just as concerned about me as she was for Hubert. She came to my room soon after it happened. “Don’t you worry about it, dear,” she said. “It wasn’t your fault. And there are psychiatrists who can help with war neurosis.”

  War neurosis? Did it really have a name? That got me wondering if we could get help for Daddy. I started imagining impossible things. Like me getting him to a psychiatrist when I got home.

  Dr. Bennett was hinting that I’d be leaving soon.

  But first I had to get fitted with Canadian canes. I didn’t want to go back to the brace shop, but of course I had to. On the way I told myself, It mostly hurts at first… It mostly hurts at first…

  Mr. Maddox was very kind. “Don’t worry about that incident,” he said. “We often drop things in here. It could have happened to anyone.” He fitted me with the canes and helped me practice walking with them.

  Once I got used to them, I felt almost like a normal person. They weren’t nearly as noticeable or as awkward as crutches. I could get around campus much faster than I did at first. And I had a feeling that eventually I’d be walking without them because he also gave me a wooden cane with a crook at the top. “To use in your room and for short distances,” he explained.

  One day I just needed a rest between school and my time on the walking court, so I sat down on a wrought-iron bench. While I was catching my breath I thought again how the white buildings around the quad looked like a frame around a pretty picture.

  Most of the time I liked being inside that frame. But on this day, the sweet smell of wisteria was putting me in a blue mood. Purple flower clusters had popped out all over the vines on the colonnade. Smelling them was kind of like seeing Hubert. It put jitters in my tummy and a buzzing in my head.

  While I was sitting there, Mr. Botts came in his wheelchair and sat beside me. “Mind if I join you?”

  “Sure.” I was honored that he would sit with me.

  “It’s too lovely to be inside,” he said. “I just want to sit here and enjoy the smell of the pines.”

  “And the wisteria?”

  “Mmm,” said Mr. Botts. “It smells good, but it certainly keeps the gardeners busy trimming.”

  “I know all about that,” I said. “My daddy hates wisteria.”

  “I hope your father is doing well.”

  It was sweet of Mr. Botts to ask. But I didn’t know what to tell him. “I hope so, too,” I said.

  Mr. Botts didn’t ask any more questions. He was quiet, though, so I thought maybe he was waiting for me to talk.

  “But the thing is, I just don’t know. My mother hardly even mentions him in her letters. It makes me think she’s leaving out something important.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want to burden you with grown-up problems.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But it’s too late for that. I’ve had them from the minute my daddy went off to war.”

  Mr. Botts nodded. “I guess the war made us all grow up,” he said. “But polio complicated things even more. Once you’re rehabilitated, that will be one less thing for you to worry about. I’m sure your mother wants you to concentrate on that right now.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said
. “I’m working at it. But sometimes it’s hard to forget about home.”

  Mr. Botts was real quiet then, and he looked like he was thinking about someplace far off. Maybe he was missing his home. I knew he’d been at the foundation almost from the beginning. So I asked him how he got there.

  “Oh,” he said, “I’m from Pennsylvania. I heard about Warm Springs from a newspaper. I came on the train, same as you. Except I started out riding in the baggage car with some chickens.”

  Well, that just astonished me. “Chickens?” I asked. “The baggage car? But why?”

  He laughed. “I was just a lame-stepper, after all. At least that’s how I thought of myself. So that’s how people treated me. But also, because of polio, I couldn’t sit up for the whole trip. So I asked my brother to make a crate for me to lie in. The baggage car was the only place for it.”

  I looked at Mr. Botts. He seemed so sure of himself, and he could sing better than anyone I ever heard. Was he saying that he used to think he was low as the chickens?

  “How did you get this way?” I think my question surprised him because he looked at me quick and squinted his eyes nearly shut. “I mean, how did you get to feeling so strong and confident? Did you feel better the minute you got to Warm Springs?”

  Mr. Botts laughed. “Actually,” he said, “when I arrived I was so worn out they fed me and put me to bed. But my brother was with me, and the next day he took me to the pools. That’s where I met FDR for the first time.”

  “What was that like?”

  “Oh, it was just grand. I was lying in the pool on some inner tubes—as pale as an envelope and just as skinny. Everyone worried that I’d be sucked down the drain. The fancy guests at the resort—that’s what it was before polios heard about Roosevelt and showed up here—looked exceedingly nervous about catching my disease. So I was feeling quite conscious of my bony white self. Suddenly I heard this booming voice say, ‘Good morning!’

  “It was Roosevelt himself. The next thing I knew, he was giving me instructions to move about in the water and concentrate on my muscles. To go lie in the sun and get myself some color. We called him Dr. Roosevelt.”